It must have been around 1980 or so.  I was sitting in a theater watching a movie and eating Jujyfruits—turns out they’re still making those.  I noticed an ad on the side of the box: send money and get foreign coins—start a coin collection!  Now, how could they afford just to give away money like that, from places like Kenya and the Seychelles—where, you say?  At any rate, that’s how I began collecting coins.  Over the next twenty years or so, I managed to obtain some really interesting coins, some really old coins—including a very worn but still legible penny from 1866—and one or two rather valuable coins.  They were at my parents’ house.

About this time of year, six years ago, I traveled back to Portland to help clear out my parents’ house.  By the end of the few days I had there, I had put about seventy years’ worth of mementos in what was about a twenty-yard dumpster in the driveway, and I made several trips to Goodwill.  I flew in and flew out.  Carting home with me boxes and boxes of things my parents had kept was out of the question.  I sorted through what was left, had to make decisions.  Some to give away, some to throw away, some to take.  Maybe you understand.  One thing I decided to take was my coin collection, which filled one of those old cloth coin bags like the banks used to use.  Maybe they still do; I don’t know.

The collection never made it to Texas.  Now, I think I would have packed it with my carry-on luggage, but maybe I didn’t.  I know I was tired, distracted, depressed, and not thinking especially clearly.  Somewhere between the Portland airport and Hobby, I lost my coin collection.  I don’t really know what it was worth: I never had it assessed.  Its value to me wasn’t monetary, but historical, personal, geographical: those coins put me in touch with world events, with people and places around the globe that I’m never going to see for myself.

Lost in transit, maybe stolen—who knows.  Like those sad songs sing, life is meant for losing.  Paul says something somewhere about all his losses being gains.  Now, no one could talk like that without the Spirit providing a new perspective.  People pursue many things in this life, value many things.  Acquisition is regarded as a good thing: purchasing power.  Those who can acquire more tend to be regarded as luckier, happier, more blessed than those who are only able to acquire a little.  You have so little—how sad!  I’m not so sure.

We know there are other values, too.  Obtaining things is not the highest, happiest pursuit.  By things, I’m not only talking about objects—we’re not so crass and materialistic as that!  Some people live to pursue experiences—travel, activities, friendships.  Others find deep satisfaction in pursuing excellent food and drink.  Neither going places nor enjoying what you eat and drink are sinful—unless these replace or take over the space formerly occupied by relationship with God.  Only the Spirit can help us to understand, cause us to perceive, that, apart from a robust, reshaping relationship with God, nothing truly has any value.  The one valuable thing in this life is knowing God, which means the one valuable thing in this life is Jesus Christ, the Living Word of the Living God.  Spend your life, then, expend your life, cultivating that relationship.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal” (6:19-20).  We store up wealth.  Here in hurricane country, we may store water and MREs.  Joseph had the Egyptians store up their grain during the years of abundance, because years of lack were coming.  We store up to give ourselves a sense of security.  When the hard times come, when the shortfall comes, when disaster comes, I will be prepared.

There’s only one total disaster in this life: rejecting Jesus Christ.  I wish the number of those who do was miniscule.  I’m afraid the number instead grows with each passing year.  Recently, I heard that the number of Democrats who say they believe in God has decreased by twenty percent over the last fifteen years.  I don’t draw the conclusion that every real Christian should go Republican as soon as possible.  What that statistic tells me is that there is a change, a continuing, accelerating change.  We know about treasure on earth, the treasures of the earth.  People labor for them, hoard them, fight over them, kill for their sake.  The perishable killing what is perishable for the sake of what is perishable—trash, Paul calls it.  Hurting and starving one another for trash.  Killing one another for trash.  I’ve got mine.  Let him get his, if he can.

It can all be taken away.  It can all be lost.  The insurance company goes bankrupt, and then where is help to be found?  You’re left standing dazed and abandoned among the splinters, shards, and rags of what was, just yesterday, your life, your home, your world.

So is the answer not to store up?  Give it all away?  If we hear what Jesus tells the rich young man, if we hear the parable of the Rich Fool and his barns bursting with bounty, we could begin to think Jesus is telling us not to bother storing up anything.  We might indeed conclude that Jesus is saying give it all away.  We also know we still need to eat.  We still need clothing.  We still need a dry, sheltered place to lay our heads at night.  We kind of like our comforts.  We’ve worked hard for them.  Paul, reflecting on his hardships—hardships he willingly endures for the sake of Christ, and did Paul ever have hardships!—he writes that so long as he had food and clothing, that was enough.  He didn’t even include shelter, but Paul was in a special category.  He didn’t ask people to follow his example in everything, just in the essentials of the faith.

We need to make provision for ourselves; let us turn to God for our provision.  God shall supply all our need.  He knows what we need even before we ask.  He knows our needs better than we do, which may seem hard to believe, but if God is God, I think we’ve got to admit He does.

We go to work to meet our necessity; we labor for our daily bread.  Christians have also always labored for the sake of offering help to the poor: not the lazy deadbeats, but those who are really struggling, those who have it harder even than we do.  Have you seen some of the trailers people live in, around town?  Some of the houses?  They’re not all shiftless.  There are those more than willing to work, but they don’t always have strong job skills, they lack job training or reliable transportation; maybe there is a language barrier; maybe childcare options and cost make full-time work complicated.  Maybe there’s medical debt and long-term health problems.

Jesus urges us to store up treasure in heaven.  Why would we need treasure in heaven?  What is treasure in heaven?  I suppose we could be quite literal about the matter, but I take Jesus to be talking about the record of the occasions and ways in which we each have done what pleases God immensely, what puts Jesus Christ on crystal clear display to those around us, believer and unbeliever alike.  We know we each have a list quite long enough already of all we’ve done and failed to do, said and failed to say that has displeased God, obscured His glory, both among unbelievers and believers alike.  Lord, forgive us our debts!

What we value determines what we pursue in this life.  What we value determines what we spend our lives on, what we expend our lives on.  Maybe each of us has a labor of love, a driving dream.  I’m not here to belittle anyone’s dream, only let the drive for holiness be part of that dream, let hunger and thirst for the Lord urge you onward.  “[W]here your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (6:21).  What we pursue can tell us some things about what we value and the condition of our heart.

Throughout the Old Testament, God speaks of His people Israel as His particular treasure, His treasured treasure, so to speak.  You and I have many treasures, many things we treasure: keepsakes, memories, moments, relationships, stories, dreams.  My prayer, for myself and each of you, is that God will always and more and more make Himself your particular treasure, your treasured treasure.  May we each value God more and more.  May we each desire to gather more and more of God, which means investing ourselves entirely into a deeper, fuller relationship with our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, the beginning and end of this life’s journey.  May God more and more fill our hearts with all His glorious, gracious, good fullness.  And may we each, more and more, devote ourselves daily to giving to others, freely, generously, this God whom we are loving with all our being.

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart; Nought be all else to me, save that Thou art—Thou my best thought, by day or by night, Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word; I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord; Thou my great Father, I Thy true child; Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise, Thou mine inheritance, now and always: Thou and Thou only, first in my heart, High King of heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of heaven, my victory won, May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun!  Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.